The Shattering
The Shattering is a fictional cataclysmic event, referring to the shattering of the giant body of land into the several continents that exist now. This is in regards to a homebrew campaign setting for a roleplaying game. The human belief The humans believe that the Eldar, the elven ancestors (or so it is believed) caused the great shattering to halt the advancement of the human rebel armies. It is believed that once, the Eldar ruled above ground while the Dwarves ruled below and that the Eldar created the humans to serve them as workers and soldiers, but lost control over their servants who rose up in force to overthrow city after city. The shattering didn't save the eldar however, who were forced to use devastating forces to stop the war, and only a select few remote eldar settlements survived, but it was said that after this, the eldar were no longer the same. The humans now held the elves as slaves instead, and the roles were reversed. Studies have found several holes in this theory however, mainly that it was only the Thrasians the northern Rahamrans (two cultures closely linked in trade) who had actually taken elves as slaves. In the rest of the world, it appears the elves managed to either flee or died in the rebellions. Human wizards and academics alike have studied the matter to great extent hoping to uncover the truth, and this has left them with one main question that lacks an answer: Why did the Eldar cause the shattering if they had the power to destroy the human armies as they did? The only possible explanation is that they hoped that they could avoid the bloodshed, but history paints the eldar as anything but merciful. Of course, another theory is that, what ever forces the Eldar unleashed is what caused the eldar cities to fall into ruins as well, killing most of the eldar in the process. The eldar took out two enemies with one blow using the shattering, as many dwarven clans were seperated, many of their deep-roads collapsed or flooded, so that would be another reason as to why the eldar performed this deed, but studies have shown that the eldar, unlike the Dwarves, were not united under a common flag, rather they seemed much more individualistic and many eldar settlements had peace or even alliances with the Dwarves. The Dwarven belief The Dwarves believe that it was the wrath of Cosmost that befell them that day, when the shattering happened. The Dwarves believe that they failed in their ancient duties, having fallen too far from their origins to be worthy of it anymore. The shattering is a major event in Dwarven history, as it was almost the undoing of their race. Every clan tells the story a bit differently, to the point where it can be hard to understand who the dwarves actually were prior to the shattering. The Dwarves are a people devoid of magic and infact consider it heretical, and thus it is considered a common thing for them to look to religion when other explanations fail, but a few dwarven scholars have managed to come up with a different theory, namely that there was a much more practical reason for the event, caused by the dwarves themselves, but this theory is generally not very appreciated as dwarves are very religious people. The various eleven believes The city elves believe the same as the humans, as they've never been exposed to any other version, but practically all other elven societies have their own versions of the happening. The Moon-Elves believe that it was helios who was punishing their ancestors for their misdeeds by raining fire on the planet, and shattering the landmass. The wood-elves have many theories, some borrowing facts from the humans, others completely ridiculous. There seems to be no red-thread among the various stories of the wood-elves. The High-Elves however, offer one of the most interesting explanations, and they are after all the most direct decendants of the eldar. The High-elves believe that magic was disappearing from the realm. The eldar were physically superior to humans, allegedly, as they were inhumanly strong and fast and agile beyond imagination, capable of incredibly feats of dexterity, and of course, they had an inherent ability to master the arts of the arcane and didn't age beyond adulthood (only slightly, somewhat maturing in their appearance). The immortality of the eldar vanished, and the high-elves claimed that the dwarves were experiencing the same. The high-elves claim that the original dwarves were litterally made of stone, or so it seemed. They were rock-hard super strong and almost impossible to kill, the high-elves often compared them to cockroaches, and they were also immortal and seemingly completely resistant to magic, at least it's direct effects. As magic slowly vanished from their lives, the eldar grew desparate, because their entire society was built on magic. Fortunately they had detected this decrease in the potency of their powers and their species in good time, and they claim they used their magic to further their technological advances to a point where magic was almost rendered pointless. Other high-elves speculate if it wasn't this very development that caused the decline of magic. Others yet claim that magic draws it's powers from an unknown realm, and that this realm *is* magic, and that it's part of our world. Their cosmology says that the world is made of several "layers", and that living beings only experience the physical world. Thousands of minor planes of existence make up the other layers, and in pulling too much magic from the magical layer, the balance is upset to a point where it cannot be restored, and as such it the shattering and the decline of magic was a reaction to that. Regardless, they claim they created the humans because they had grown too frail after the loss of their powers, and after they could no longer create true golems anymore (leaving the question what an "untrue golem" is, for they did not cease to try). They needed soldiers to fight their many enemies and workers to build and mine resources. The high-elves claim that it was not them who caused the shattering, because at that point in time, they no longer held any semblence of magical powers anymore, at least nothing that could have caused such a devastating effect, but in the war against the human rebels, the High-elves finally come to a halt in their explanations, as they cannot truly offer any. All high-elves who were alive during that time speak of the happening as "a mistake caused by impatient souls", and these elders of the high-elven society are closely guarded. The high-elves say that some magic returned to their people after these events however, but it seems that they were not the only ones to recieve the gift of magic, with human sorcerers suddenly roaming the globe. Most high-elves seem to think that it was their superior technology that allowed them to defeat the humans, but that without magic, the eldar could not predict the outcomes properly, which in turn backfired. One thing is certain, the high-elves remain very guarded as only very few of them yet live, and they have almost no ability to reproduce anymore, as if they were products of a time past, clinging to a world that rejects them. They've only been in contact with the other races, seemingly to prevent another happening, and they, along with the Dwarves and their zelous and anit-magical nature have helped the humans find their way into a society where magic is restricted. What technology the high-elves have that the humans don't is a mystery that no man has ever managed to answer.